


Sunkissed

by EmiAliceinWonderland



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blue Lily Lily Blue Spoilers, Friendship/Love, Gen, Introspective Angst, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pynch Week 2016, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:47:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7772860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmiAliceinWonderland/pseuds/EmiAliceinWonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 2 Pynch Week Prompt! ~ Sunkissed skin~</p><p>Ronan introspective angst....and THEN SUDDENLY: Ronan introspective fluff. That's it. That's the summary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunkissed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what this is??? But it's 2.30AM and I can't sleep so I thought I'd try a bit o' Pynch week. I'd really appreciate comments! ^__^

Sometimes everything is too much.   
  
The sun is shining harsh and bright and reflecting strangely through the stained glass windows of the church. Normally the antique windows are calming to look at, ancient, beautiful things. But like Cabeswater, they seem to have to ability to change into something nightmareish if Ronan is in the wrong state of mind. The colours of the glass mixed with the sun shatters itself into unnerving, colourful patterns across Matthew and Declan's faces.

A bright green reflects itself over Matthew's cheek. A red flash crawls across Declan's back.

Ronan's brothers have their heads bent, shoulders relaxed, palms together, eyes closed, praying quietly. Ronan is meant to be doing the same, but somehow this Sunday doesn't feel like Sundays usually do, and the church doesn't feel as serene, and he just _can't_ relax.

(In the back of his mind he knows why, he knows he can't yet shake the creeping under his skin that comes from remembering what he and Adam had had to do in his sacred place last week in order to frame Greenmantle.)

\---

When the morning's mass is finished Ronan declines Declan's offer of going out for brunch with him and Matthew, despite Matthew's pleading face, and hopeful look in his eyes.   
  
"Nah," Ronan shrugs, feigning nonchalance, like he hadn't spent the whole service thinking of demons and dead bodies and all the strange magic that surrounds him and his friends. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate on anything in the _real_ world when they're caught up in the middle of this tangled web of Welsh kings and ley lines.

Sometimes it's just _too much_.

"Just go on your own with Declan this time, 'kay?" he says to Matthew after a moment, voice softer as he reaches out to give his younger brothers' sunny curls an affectionate ruffle.

 

\---

With his hands shoved into his pockets to stop himself from scratching at the skin of his hands with his nails to try to get the dirty, crawling feeling of the evidence he'd had to dream up in that church out of his system, Ronan sighs, grits his teeth, and makes his way up the cramped, creaking stairs to Adam's apartment above the church.   
  
He reluctantly takes his hands out of his pockets after a moment of staring dully at the door in front of him. He chews on his leather bands a little, tugs them with his teeth, and then gives the door a few solid knocks.

He opens it before Adam has a chance to acknowledge him.

When Ronan steps into the tiny, familiar room though he realises that Adam probably wouldn't have heard him knock anyway. The other boy is sitting with his back turned to Ronan, one hand in his dusty hair, head bowed, and the other hand twirling a pencil around in his fingers over a piece of paper that is more than likely homework for tomorrow that Ronan should be doing too. He has an ear bud attached to his phone on his desk in one ear, rendering him oblivious to the outside world.   
  
Ronan considers not saying or doing anything to make his presence known for a few seconds, before deciding that as much as he treasures the rare moments of being able to stare at Adam Parrish uninterrupted, it'd be a little creepy to just stand there in his bedroom.   
  
He coughs loudly, trying to do the fake polite 'excuse me, I'm behind you' thing that Gansey always pulls off impeccably. When Ronan tries to do it, he accidentally pushes out a fake cough that is far too loud, making him cough for real and splutter from the forced nature of it. He feels himself going red in the face as Adam turns around in his chair, pulling out his earphones, one eyebrow raised and a half-smirk, half-utterly bemused look on his face.   
  
"Shut up", Ronan growls out when he's finished choking on thin air, even though Adam hasn't said anything. At that Adam lets out a laugh that he'd probably been holding in, and moves up from his space at the desk to walk the tiny distance across his room to close the door that Ronan had left open.

"Nice to see you too, Lynch", he says with a roll of his eyes, moving to sit on the mattress on the floor that serves as his bed when Ronan flops himself down on it. Ronan takes the pillow and sprawls back, strangely comfortable in Adam's presence and the safety of the apartment. He feels better than he did during the church service already.

He feels a tiny bit of guilt, acidic and distasteful, rise up in his throat at the realisation that he feels more comfortable with Adam Parrish than he does with his brothers, with his family.

But _then_ , he thinks, _maybe people you love can become a sort of family._

 

\---

Ronan has been at the St. Agnes apartment for hours. He didn't realise it, but he'd somehow drifted off into a rare, peaceful episode of sleep in the comfortable silence he and Adam shared.   
  
He rubs his eyes as he sits up, noting how the light outside had gone from the bright, harshly white morning sun of earlier to a more mellow, soft afternoon hue. He looks over to where Adam had been sitting, on the other end of the mattress against the wood panelled wall. He's asleep now too. Had he closed his eyes before or after Ronan had? He can't remember, but a faint blush rises to his cheeks at the thought of Adam watching him sleep. Now, though, he is the one doing the watching. He can't help it. He flashes back to the uneasy feeling he'd had earlier in the church, the feeling of everything being too much.

He marvels at how, somehow, everything feels just right now. Right here. Only a few feet above the church, but warm and safe with this magic boy who he just _knows_ will help them all find a way out of the tangled Glendower web. The anxious twists of his stomach have been transformed into quiet, gentle butterflies as he slept, and the itching under his skin, the urge to hurt himself, has been replaced with a tingling in his fingers where he wants to reach and tuck a stray piece of Adam's hair behind his ear.

The brown lock is falling over his resting eyelids, curling softly at the end, getting a little too long. Ronan so, so desperately wants to reach out and touch it.

He's struck by the recent memory of the stained glass windows shifting abstract, too-bright colours across his brothers this morning, and can't help comparing it to the way the soft daylight from the small St. Agnes window is splaying itself out on Adam's cheek, highlighting his face in a way that makes it look like he's glowing from the inside.

The sun is kissing him, and Ronan wishes he could too.

 

 

 

 


End file.
